1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a print job creation apparatus and a print job creation and output method. More specifically the invention pertains to a print job creation apparatus that creates a print job with respect to a print service selected among multiple print service options, as well as to a print job creation and output method that causes a computer to create and output a print job with respect to a print service selected among multiple print service options.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Proposed print job creation apparatuses function to read picture images taken with a digital camera, introduce simple modifications of the images, incorporate the images in a layout, such as a postcard or an album, and set printing conditions. These prior art apparatuses read photographs, classify the photographs into desired categories to be stored like films, and create print jobs. The print job creation process includes a film selection step, a print service selection step of selecting a desired print service, for example, postcard printing, album printing, or calendar printing, a photograph selection step of selecting photographs to be printed, a print setting step of specifying settings of a style, a print option, and a printer, a layout adjustment step of adjusting a layout of pages with photographs incorporated therein, and a print step of finely adjusting the printing position, inputting the number of copies, and giving a print execution instruction. At the print setting step, a conventionally used printer for a certain OS (operating system) is set to a default printer in a printer selection box, and the user may change the default printer to another printer selected in a pulldown menu (see ‘Digital Camera de!! Doji Print (Simultaneous Printing with Digital Camera) 6, User's Manual, 1st ed. A. I. Soft. Inc., July 2002, p. 100-104).
Such prior art print job creation apparatuses are mainly designed for general household use and accordingly have only a low printing efficiency in business use. In general household use, only one printer, which is capable of printing to a size A4 or a size B4, is typically connected to a computer and is used for printing. The printer is thus naturally set to the default printer. In business use, however, multiple printers having different printable paper sizes and various paper types are generally used for printing. Selection of a suitable printer for each print job undesirably lowers the printing efficiency. This prior art apparatus requires a continuous flow of creation to execution of each print job as a consecutive series of processing. It is accordingly not allowed to divide the labor of creation and execution of a print job into multiple operators. This results in poor working efficiency.